Venus of Shadows (4 page)

The people with him now might believe that they had chosen to be here, but he suspected that Counselors had manipulated a few of them to make that decision. Some of them might be troublemakers, and their communities better off without them. Anyone expressing a willingness to start over on Venus, even with no hope of being chosen officially by the Project Council, would be one a Counselor might steer here.

"The Mukhtars!" Alexei spat. "Venus won't be theirs. It'll belong to the people who build it, whatever the Mukhtars say. If anyone tells me what to do, he'll soon see what he's up against."

Malik leaned forward. "I've learned that it does no good either to get close to the powerful or to work against them. Better to live out your life in the hope that they won't notice you at all."

"Those are a coward's words."

"Silence, Alexei Sergeievich," a black-haired man with the flat cheekbones of a Mongolian said. "Words don't make a man brave."

Yekaterina put a hand on her brother's shoulder; Alexei pulled away. "I'm still confused," she said. "Couldn't a time come when your uncle might rise again? You would only have to wait."

Malik was silent. There was no point in explaining the true situation to these people. Guardian Commanders were among Abdullah Heikal's allies now, Guardians impatient with being only the arms of the Mukhtars. Muhammad was powerless against them as long as so many of the Mukhtars did not resist their growing influence. Abdullah had been ready for a battle with Habbers, while Muhammad had counseled against that fight. The Commanders had felt themselves shamed and would always regard Malik's uncle as one of the causes of that shame.

"Whatever they took from you," Yekaterina continued, "the Nomarchies must have spent much to train you — surely they could have found other work for you here. However humble your position, it would have been higher than ours, and your work easier. Do you really need to run to Venus?"

"They took more from me than you know," Malik said. "The shock of that loss was too great. Everything here only reminds me of that loss, and I need to forget."

"So our choice," Alexei said, "the chance we've given up everything for, is only a punishment for you."

Malik shook his head. "Being here isn't my punishment. I suffered my punishment earlier."

He reached up and pushed his turban back a little, revealing the tiny scar on his forehead. "That was my punishment. I was a Linker, and my Link was taken from me. I could have borne the rest if they'd left me my Link, but I was to be a useful example to others. Other scholars will now be more cautious in their speculations, while Abdullah and his friends have shown my uncle that their power is growing."

Yekaterina raised a hand to her mouth; he thought he saw sympathy in her dark eyes. Alexei frowned, looking even more suspicious than before, while the rest of the group was silent.

Malik listened to the silence inside his head. A simple procedure, the physician had said. Malik would suffer a headache for only a day or two after the implant and its microscopic components were removed and the slight damage to his nerve endings repaired. A simple procedure, to remove the Link connecting him to Earth's cyberminds; the simple procedure had seemed more like an amputation. He had felt like a man suddenly blinded and deafened and made mute as well, cut off from certain senses and forced to communicate through other means. Even the band he could put on his head was not able to replace his lost Link. The band opened channels to the artificial intelligences only to block his path when he probed too far and reached a road open only to Linkers.

"Now you know about me," Malik said. He wondered if he had dispelled some of their suspicions or had intensified them. "Losing my Link nearly destroyed me — I feel the loss still. I can't imagine what such a punishment would be like for one who had lived with a Link longer than I had." He drew his turban back over his scar.

Alexei's mouth twisted. "You lost only what most never have."

"It was as though I'd lost part of my soul. A world had suddenly been taken from me."

"That isn't what you regret," Alexei said. "It's the jewel you once wore on your head, the jewel that marked what you were and made even strangers bow to you."

Yekaterina touched Malik's sleeve. "Don't listen to my brother."

Alexei stood up and walked on; the others began to follow him. Malik rose and helped the young woman to her feet. "Thank you for what you said."

"I didn't say it just for your sake," she replied. "What good will it do to leave this world if we carry our resentments to the next?"

"I wonder if we can avoid that," he said, feeling the burden of history.

*  *  *

The group trudged on in silence. Toward noon, a floater passed overhead, casting its elongated shadow on the broken road. The helium-filled dirigible was long and sausage-shaped, with a windowed cabin for its passengers; Malik thought of those carefree travelers and lowered his eyes. High-speed trains and tubeways connected most major cities, but travel on a floater was often the only way to get to smaller towns. Malik wondered where this one was bound, and what its passengers were thinking as they gazed at the group below.

The sun had quickly burned away the chill in the air, and a sharp wind was dying down. Yekaterina pulled off her fur hat and let her hair fall over her shoulders. Malik, having noted her black eyes and olive-skinned face, had expected her to have dark hair, but she was nearly as blond as her brother. The wind had heightened the color on her broad cheeks while the blond curls softened her features.

She glanced at him from the sides of her eyes and smiled a little; he had seen such glances many times. His beauty was a curse. Without it, he might have found a bondmate by now, a companion who could have eased his pain and loneliness. Instead, he had gone from one love to the next only to find, during his disgrace, that none of them loved him enough to share his shame. He thought of Wadzia, who had been quick to let others know her connection with him was a casual one, and of Luciana, who had found only excuses to give him.

Malik rubbed at the stubble on his face; he might not seem so attractive now, disheveled as he was. Maybe Yekaterina Osipova only pitied him.

He and the woman had fallen behind the others. Malik halted for a moment, took out his canteen, drank, then offered his water to Yekaterina. She took a sip, then handed the canteen back.

"You spoke of yourself, Malik Haddad," she said as they walked on. "Perhaps I should tell you a little about myself."

"If you wish."

"I applied to be a worker with the Venus Project. My Counselor tried to talk me out of it and said I had no chance, but I insisted."

"Then you were rejected," Malik said, "or you wouldn't be here."

"Perhaps I should have listened to the Counselor. Those I went to said they had no need of a woman whose only work was growing vegetables. I told them people had to eat wherever they were. They said I had no skills, and I said that I had learned to read, could speak Anglaic, and that I could learn anything else they felt I needed to know. They said a settler's life wasn't easy, and I said that I came from people who took pride in how much suffering they could bear. They turned me down. I went home to think of ways to make them change their minds."

"What happened then?" Malik asked.

"I had a lover, Yuri. That was enough — I wanted no more from him. But I was nearly twenty, and he kept after me for a pledge. Soon, my parents were taking his side — they were going to renew their bond and wanted a ceremony for me at the same time. My mother told me I was a fool, that Yuri wanted me enough to pledge two decades or even three. It's the way she thinks, that you should have a bond with a man for as many years as possible, so that when it's time to renew the bond or let it lapse, it's harder for him to leave."

Malik nodded. Yekaterina clearly came from a community where such bonds were valued, and her Counselor would have insisted that she follow custom.

"I know a little of other lands," Yekaterina continued. "I told my parents there were places where people scorned bonds or wore them lightly, but they wouldn't listen — their ways are the law of the world in their eyes. I had some love for Yuri. He was strong, and a hard worker, and his smile made my heart dance, but I knew that he would demand too much from me. Yuri was content in our village — he didn't want me to think of trying to leave it again. He mocked my learning and said it was useless."

Malik arched his brows. "Your learning?"

She smiled. "It isn't learning like yours, only what I could find out with my screen and band. I can read. I've had some lessons, but not enough to be chosen for a school." She lifted her head. "On Venus, all children can go to a school. They don't have to hope that a Counselor will choose them or find a way to pay for the lessons if they aren't chosen."

The rest of the group was getting farther ahead of them; the two picked up their pace. "Why did you come here?" Malik asked. "Did you decide there was no point in applying to the Project Council again?"

She shook her head. "Alexei wanted to come. Even our parents saw that it might be better for him to be away from our village. I couldn't let him come here alone. My mother wept, but she knew that I'd try to look out for him."

"He seems old enough to look after himself."

"He's seventeen." She paused. "I don't like to say this about my brother, but he thinks freedom is only the chance to do what he likes, with no one to hold him back. Whatever freedom is on Venus, it cannot be that kind, but —"

Yekaterina put on her hat, then thrust her hands into her coat pockets. "Alexei has often been troublesome," she murmured, "and he'd fallen in with a few like himself. The Counselor would have done something about that eventually, but happily my brother chose to come here. I had to come with him, and it's also a chance to have what I want. Maybe when we reach Venus, his anger at the world will cool."

Light danced on the horizon, reflected by facets of glass; Malik lifted a hand to shade his eyes. A town lay ahead, with rows of wooden dwellings and glassy greenhouses for the fruit grown in this region. He had been taken to a town much like it once, to sit under the trees eating shashlik and drinking tea while dark-eyed Uzbek and Russian children gathered to gape at the unfamiliar sight of a Linker. Much as he longed to rest, this village was not likely to welcome them. Already, the people ahead were following a dirt path that led away from the town.

*  *  *

They walked rapidly, refusing to rest, pushing themselves on until a few of them were panting. The prospect of sleeping out in the open sent fear through the group. The night might be cold; there was talk of wolves. Malik found himself worrying more about what lay ahead in the camp.

Most of the specialists working with the Venus Project were selected from among students at the Cytherian Institute, a university in Caracas, one of the cities of Nueva Hispania. Some of them came there from various regions of Earth, while others were chosen from among young people who had grown up on Venus's Islands. Skilled workers who wanted a place with the Project could apply to the Project Council, but most of them were turned down.

The camp that was Malik's destination held ones who were more impatient or more desperate.

Ten years earlier, people had begun to make their way to various shuttle ports, to camp there until they were granted passage to Venus. Those who could pay might have been allowed to go, but this would only encourage others to make the same demand. Domes were being built on Venus, but there was room for only a certain number of people. Some of the hopeful emigrants lacked needed skills, while others were likely to be a disruptive influence.

The crowds might have been dispersed, but the Council of Mukhtars had been wiser than that. Better to let some of the discontented gather where Guardians could keep an eye on them, and where their restlessness could cause trouble only to themselves.

Near three of Earth's cities, including Tashkent, isolated land at a distance from each city's port had been set aside for those who wanted passage to Venus. There, they were allowed to wait until passage could be found for them, but a price was extracted for this. Those traveling there had to pay for their journey and surrender the rest of their credit when they reached a camp. They had to wait, with no guarantee that they would ever leave Earth. If they then chose to give up waiting, they had to take whatever labor was found for them elsewhere, and Malik knew that only the most burdensome work and conditions were offered to such people.

Malik had heard of riots in the camps, outbursts born of despair; some had died in the violence. The Mukhtars, although they prided themselves on their restraint, did not trouble to hide measures taken to quell the disturbances; there was no point in encouraging too many people to join those in the camps. Given the uncertainty of life there, and the capriciousness involved in choosing those who would be allowed to leave, it was a wonder that thousands still dreamed of finding a new life on Venus.

"Look there," the Mongolian man said as he pointed toward the horizon. A few lights were shining in the distance; a beam from a tower swept across the ground. The group strode more rapidly. A large, egg-shaped cradle was to the east of the tower; a floater rested inside it.

As the travelers came nearer, two Guardians left the tower and waited outside. The camp was now visible; prefabricated shacks, tents, and yurts, rounded structures made of felt and wood, were surrounded by posts with scanners. Three other towers loomed over the dwellings below.

"Halt right there," one of the Guardians, a short, stocky man with dark eyes, called out in Anglaic. "I trust you understand me. You can speak whatever you like here, but you'll need Anglaic on Venus."

"Don't you think we know that?" a woman asked.

"We've seen a few who thought they could fool us. They had to be turned away." The Guardian motioned toward the tower door. "Line up there — we'll take you one at a time. We have to do a med-scan before you go in."